Thousands of soccer players and supporters during opening ceremonies of AYSO National Games at the StubHub Center in Carson. Carson Calif., Tuesday July 1, 2014.
(Photo by Stephen Carr / Daily Breeze)

The Boys under 16 AYSO region 14 from West Torrance joined thousands of soccer players during a parade at opening ceremonies of AYSO National Games at the StubHub Center in Carson. Carson Calif., Tuesday July 1, 2014.
(Photo by Stephen Carr / Daily Breeze)

When this whole thing started, the sport was for those kids with the funny last names, or foreign-sounding first names.

Baseball, basketball, football, even track and field were the fields of glory in the United States in the 1960s, but the more the newcomers to America took root, so did their sports.

They might have even talked a little different, sounding like they were from the casting of Hogan’s Heroes or Mary Poppins. And what do you mean you can’t use your hands?

But in Torrance in 1964, nine soccer teams were formed for 135 kids.

Fifty years later, hundreds of kids from teams across the United States and even from Trinidad and Tobago crammed into the StubHub Center for Tuesday’s opening ceremonies for the AYSO National Games.

That means in Torrance, the birthplace of the American Youth Soccer Organization, and in Riverside, hundreds of teams will compete in different age divisions for boys and girls.

So on a day when the U.S. national team played a milestone match in the round of 16 at the World Cup in Brazil, it might have been pretty easy for some in the crowd to observe that it hasn’t been a bad 50 years of influence for an organization

For certain, Torrance has always been the groundbreaker and the top representative of the city, Mayor Frank Scotto, read a proclamation from the city council.

But he was there not only as the local dignitary, but as part of the celebration. Scott has coached and refereed for AYSO for more than 35 years, and he was reminded of that after the ceremony when a kid in a soccer uniform came up to greet him.

“He came up to me and said I used to coach his mom back when she was 16 years old,” Scotto said. “Those are the kinds of things that really mean a lot to me, knowing you’ve passed on generation to generation. These kids are having a great time playing a sport that is truly a team sport.”

One of the first players in that league in 1964 was an 11-year-old immigrant from West Germany. He might have been known as Siegfried at home, but now he’s Sigi Schmid, the current coach of the Seattle Sounders and the winningest coach in Major League Soccer.

Schmid was an inaugural inductee to the AYSO Hall of Fame in 1996, along with Brian Davies, Paul Harris, Bill Hughes, Norm Jackson, George “Scotty” Kay, Hans Stierle and Bill Wolstencroft.

It wouldn’t be long before alumni players like Paul Caligiuri, Carin Jennings, Eric Wynalda, Brandi Chastain, Julie Foudy and Joy Fawcett were joining them in the Hall of Fame.

Even that recently, it would have been difficult to believe that all these teams would be marching into a packed stadium to start a week of a national all-star event.

AYSO, of course, is a volunteer-driven sport, which Scotto discovered the first time he made an inquiry.

His son had come home from kindergarten one day with a note pinned to him asking if he would want to play soccer.

“So on a Friday night I called up and they said, ‘Well, he can play if you coach.’ I said, ‘I don’t know anything about coaching,’ ” Scotto said.

That was in 1978, when he never dreamed he would see what he did Tuesday.

“In these stands here today, I firmly believe that one or some of these kids could possibly be playing in a game in the World Cup like we saw today,” Scotto said. “In the United States, soccer is still in its infancy compared to the other sports that we have. We have a long way to go to become the world class we want to be.

“But we’re going in the right direction and I personally believe if we continue to support it like we are, generation after generation playing the sport, someday people wil be fearful of the United States in the World Cup.”

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